Must be the exposed collarbone....

So I'm not married.

Meanwhile I'm 35, have two cats and don't own the dwelling I live in. These are some serious strikes in a city full of overachieving financiers, engineers and architects.

Boston has provided me with a random selection of dating options: guys sitting in the pews behind me in church; craigslist trollers responding to my posts for apartment roommates; the buffsters in polo shirts, met without verbal intro on dance floors after 12 or so "courage" martinis; the very occasional straight man in community theatre productions; the even rarer single man among the suburbanites in my office.

(The good news is that it is tremendously easier to be single in a city of this size. Easier to blend in, that is. I spent many years in small town in the Midwest and when you are 35 and not married, you are a constant object of speculation. Or perhaps you just think that folks are speculating. Or just wish they were and/or were providing you with dinner dates when inviting you over, rather than leaving you as the only single person in a room full of couples and kids.)

All these roads have led me to, or rather back to, match.com. After trying it last fall, then taking a 4-month hiatus, I'm back at it. Re-posted the profile and loaded-in a new picture....the one from my 34th birthday dinner with my sisters, showing a little collarbone and shoulder. (Hint: It's the photo attached to my profile here.) Added a tidbit about having run the Boston Marathon last month (working not to sound boastful) and how nothing is more satisfying than a long, hard yoga class.

So that was Thursday night.

One of the most fun features of match.com is the counter that shows how many people have viewed your profile. Since then, I'm up to 171 views. Plus 6 "winks", or simply "hi, I'm here!" notices, and 3 straight-out e-mail messages. This is a huge rise in volume of views over last fall -- so I'm trying to figure now what caused the uptick. Must be the exposed collarbone.

But I knew I had to make match.com the subject of the inaugural post of this blog yesterday afternoon, when a message popped up in my e-mail inbox with the title: "New Hampshire Calling." Woo-hoo! I opened it to find the following: my potential suitor is 73 years old. He likes to garden. He once studied at Harvard. He said I have nice legs.

My first thought was: wonder if he's rich.